Wind resistant top cover picture

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peakbagger

Minister of Fire
Jul 11, 2008
8,769
Northern NH
Here is my approach to top covering stacks. I keep an inventory of scrap or warped wood and cover material. I use 3-1/2" decking screws to attach the uprights to the log ends and then screw the cross braces on with the same. The top cover is a PVC sign board I grabbed from an old employer but I also have collection of old roofing tin and steel roofing. Note that I do tilt it a bit for drainage and make sure there is some overhang. I just drill through the cover and put in 3 deck screws on the outside supports and just one on each end of the center supports. This is recent stack but I have had many stacks that have survived 4 feet of snow on top of them. I am in high wind zone and have never lost a cover. I did have one stack partially fall over that twisted one but it wasn't the covers fault. I will leave the cover on for a year and then at some point the stack will get moved to my woodshed prior to burning season in a year or two.

My town taxes wood sheds if they are permanent, this isn't.
top cover.JPG
 
Nice idea.

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I need to keep an eye out for such materials. I've read you can hit up the local lumber yard for cast of roofing materials. Any truth to this?
 
50+ gusts this morning - don't know which farm the chip board was transported to.
 
I'm afraid if that was in my open windy back yard where I stack - well, it likely wouldn't all be there for too awful long. A very good idea though if it will work for your spot.
 
I do have some up wind cover but I also get significant wind gusts. I have to design for high winds. I am not that far away from the summit of Mt Washington in NH which has the highest recorded wind speed observed by man (231 MPH) and in a broad valley to the north of it where the winds funnel around the summits instead of going over them. Not good enough for a wind mill but I do have an Industrial Wind Farm about 8 miles north. If I was worried, I would run the side supports down lower to catch more of the stack and beef up to attachments of the top cover to the cross pieces. I get most of my wind in the winter when they is pile of snow on the cover.
 
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I'm in wide open farm country- if it aint nailed down won't be there long when the wind starts up.
 
That's why the top cover is screwed down to the crosspieces. I do on occasion get lazy and top cover with roofing tin with pallets on top They usually survive but have had few move in heavy wind events.
 
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I do have some up wind cover but I also get significant wind gusts. I have to design for high winds. I am not that far away from the summit of Mt Washington in NH which has the highest recorded wind speed observed by man (231 MPH) and in a broad valley to the north of it where the winds funnel around the summits instead of going over them. Not good enough for a wind mill but I do have an Industrial Wind Farm about 8 miles north. If I was worried, I would run the side supports down lower to catch more of the stack and beef up to attachments of the top cover to the cross pieces. I get most of my wind in the winter when they is pile of snow on the cover.

I was just in your neck of the woods last summer! We went right up to the windmills